A client record is only as useful as what you put in it. Stuff it with every email and you'll never find what matters. Strip it down to a name and a phone number and you're back to rebuilding context every January. The trick is knowing what earns a place in the record and what doesn't.
What belongs
- Contact details — name, email, phone, mailing address, preferred channel
- Return history — what was filed, when, and the current status this season
- Documents on file and what's still needed
- Notes that change how you prepare — life events, new dependents, a business started or closed
- Anything you flagged to revisit next year
What doesn't
- Every email ever sent — keep the decisions, not the threads
- Duplicate copies of the same document
- Notes about a different client that landed here by mistake
- Anything you'd be uncomfortable having a client read back
The test for what to keep
Before you save something to a client record, ask one question: would this change how I prepare their return next year? If the answer is yes, it belongs. If it's just correspondence that's already done its job, it doesn't. A clean record is one you can scan in thirty seconds and know exactly where things stand.
Gemcore gives each taxpayer one record — contact details, return history, documents, and notes in a single view — so the information worth keeping is the information you can actually find.